September 30th, 2010:

I got my light-brown Clarks Natureveldts back from Resole America today, and although I may have talked about this here before, it’s worth saying again: Shoes that fit well are worth keeping, and the soles will invariably wear out before the uppers. I’ve been wearing Natureveldts as my casual everyday shoes since 1987, and they fit my fairly wide feet a lot better than anything else I’ve tried. They also wear like iron, at least if they were made before Clarks moved production to China sometime in the early oughts. I still have two pairs that go back to 1994 or so, and have replaced the soles several times, each time through Resole America. Turnaround time is about ten days, and cost is $75. Quality of the rework is superb.

I have a pair of Chinese Natureveldts on which the leather on the uppers has begun wearing through after about four years. They’re basically disposable shoes now, though not cheap ones. The fit is still good, but as with so much else, quality is no longer a choice we’re offered.

We’re also not offered the choice of buying dry-roasted peanuts without MSG in them. Safeway has five different brands, all heavily laced with neurotoxins. Oh ye who can actually eat that crap without consequences (I cannot) answer me this: Does it really make the peanuts taste better?

It’s a little disconcerting to look out your office window and see a toothy 200-pound omnivore walking down the sidewalk in front of your house. I snatched my camera out of the dock and ran out the front door, which may sound nutty, but I felt a little nutty, and followed the booger down the street, taking video as I went. He didn’t hurry and didn’t even turn around to look at me, and whereas I pondered jumping up and down and yelling “Roogie! Roogie! Whoosh!” with a Thurber accent, that would have been a little too nutty. Mostly I was happy that garbage day was yesterday.

I looked and did not find an answer to this question: When a concept exists today that did not exist in ancient Rome, are there Latin fanatics somewhere who create a Latin-ish word for it? (The French are masters at this.)

Carol’s better, the Pack is home from Jimi’s, and although my back still hurts, the weather has gone from mostly pleasant to extremely pleasant. I still need a basing diagram for the 6993 Geiger-Muller tube, but if that’s as bad as it gets, I’d call today a serious winner.